I Only Baked Bread, but I Was Mistaken for the Best - Chapter 62

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 62. Unwanted Yet Desperate (6)
It was I who brought Grandmother Man-ok, the mother of this wretch named Heo Tae-woong, into this bakery.
I couldn’t understand what the other phrases written in the prophecy meant, but at least I could comprehend one sentence from the final passage.
‘The sinner shall reunite in the worst possible way when the moon sets.’
That must have meant it would happen the next day.
At first, I didn’t know what “worst possible reunion” meant, but it had to be referring to my encounter with Grandmother Man-ok.
‘So if he comes tomorrow, I should call Grandmother right away.’
‘And what do you intend to do by calling her?’
‘I have my reasons.’
And this is the situation that resulted from that plan….
“What is this bastard doing, causing trouble in a place like this!”
The moment Tae-woong arrived, I secretly sent a text, and she came rushing over.
Yet seeing her voice raised with fury reaching the tips of her hair, the sense of betrayal she felt seemed to run extraordinarily deep.
Of course, the son standing before her didn’t seem to grasp that at all.
“What, what’s wrong? Is this a place I can’t come to? This is my mother’s bakery, so shouldn’t I be able to get a share too?”
“You shameless fool! This bakery was built through the blood and sweat of this young owner! What do you know about it!”
“Well, if this building didn’t exist, I couldn’t have done it anyway, so it’s only fair I get a share!”
His expression showed not a shred of hesitation or shame, as if the building itself belonged entirely to him.
He thought his parents’ possessions were completely his own—so naturally, so obviously.
“Sigh… how did things ever come to this….”
Grandmother Man-ok, understanding this, clutched at her aching heart as if tearing it apart.
Meanwhile, Tae-woong continued his rambling, utterly indifferent to the collapse of another’s spirit.
I couldn’t listen anymore.
Running a bakery, I’d faced all sorts of troublesome customers, but I’d never encountered a human being this shameless.
“Meoooow….”
Noir’s nose wrinkled as if detecting a foul stench—karma that covered his entire body.
The mass of karma, appearing as if rotting filth were oozing down viscously, coiled around Tae-woong’s entire form.
And that wasn’t all.
As if it possessed contagious properties, it splattered karma everywhere with wet, squelching sounds.
“Wait a moment….”
I stood up from my seat and grabbed a few chestnut butter cream buns from the display case.
I handed one to Haeryang, who was manning the counter.
Noticing my gaze, she seemed to grasp something through keen observation and quickly consumed the cream bun.
I offered the remaining cream buns to Grandmother Man-ok and her biological son, Tae-woong.
“Please, have some and calm yourselves.”
“Sigh. The owner sure knows how to run a business. This is why mother’s bakery failed.”
“You insolent bastard!”
Because of Tae-woong, who kept dropping careless remarks that dampened the atmosphere, customers were already quickly buying their bread and leaving without lingering.
Since the break time happened to coincide, I hung up the Closed sign and returned to my seat.
“Mmm! This is delicious. You must be making quite a bit of money.”
Fortunately, both Grandmother Man-ok and Tae-woong ate the cream bread.
The karmic debt clinging to Grandmother Man-ok vanished as if washed away.
But Tae-woong was different.
For just a moment, as he became slightly cleaner, I glimpsed those contemptible, downturned eyes before fresh karma surged from his mouth and engulfed his face once more.
‘If karma is contagious, then his son might have experienced the same thing, right? Though that wouldn’t erase the sins he committed, it means the root problem isn’t truly resolved.’
‘There’s a way to verify this, isn’t there? Owner? Feed him the cream bread.’
‘And then?’
‘If it’s contagious, the karma will disappear. But if it isn’t, those things will cover his body again.’
This confirmed it.
Just as Noir had told me before—this man was beyond redemption.
If that was the case, there was no reason to hesitate.
“Tae-woong… Owner?”
“Yeah. What is it?”
“Since you’ve come, I can give you five million won first. I’d like to give you more out of gratitude, but it’s difficult to prepare right now.”
“What? What are you talking about!”
Grandmother Man-ok grabbed my hand in shock at my words.
I understood why.
She was hearing something that made no sense, yet I was agreeing to it.
But I had my reasons, so I grasped her hand in return and sent her a meaningful look.
Trust me.
And Grandmother Man-ok’s instincts, honed by years of running a business, clearly grasped my intention.
One person, however, did not.
“Huh? Yeah… yeah, that’s right! Ha ha. Sure. That’s good enough. Wow, the Young Owner really is quick on the uptake, isn’t he?”
“Instead, could you just hold Grandmother’s hand once? You’ve suffered so much.”
“Why are you suddenly like this, young man?”
“Ah! That’s nothing! Ha ha! Easy!”
The contrast in their reactions was stark.
One had rejected the warmth of the son she’d desperately longed for all this time, while the other was attempting to feign a love he didn’t feel.
Yet they say that no matter how wayward a child is, there’s no parent who can truly disown them.
In the end, Grandmother Man-ok reluctantly took her son’s hand.
“Tae-woong. You can’t live like this. If you’d just be honest from now on…”
“That’s enough, yeah? Go get that five million won already. Goodness, I’ve been such a bother!”
Even then, Grandmother Man-ok tried to save her son, but Tae-woong pulled his hand away sharply as if he had no further use for her.
And now he was urging me to bring the money quickly.
“Young man. Don’t listen to him. There’s no point in giving it. That’s money you earned through hard work—why would you give it to him?”
“Ugh! Mom! He said he’d take it, so why are you like this? Why do you always stick your nose in other people’s lives? Just stay quiet!”
“Grandmother. It’s fine.”
It really is fine.
The method for determining the target of the mugwort castella is physical contact.
So the effects should manifest very soon now.
How long had it been since I rose from my seat to retrieve money, only to enter an empty counter with nothing to show for it?
“Ah. It’s not like I’m creating something from nothing, so why is it taking this long…”
Tae-woong’s irritated words suddenly ceased.
And his expression went blank.
“What is this… What…?”
A torrent of emotions he had never experienced in his entire life.
Caught within that current, Tae-woong could not sit still.
“What on earth is this?!”
Tears streaming endlessly from both his eyes.
* * *
The sweetness lingering in his mouth became a memory from childhood.
A memory from when he was truly young—before Tae-woong himself had even turned ten.
No, it was not his memory at all.
It was Man-ok’s memory, his mother’s.
“How… how is this possible…”
Swept up in the current, he began to feel another’s emotions as his own.
His chest felt torn asunder by a single cry from his child.
He could forget the agony of his body shattering with a single laugh.
With a single word, a single action, a single breath, life continued, and death drew near.
So this was not Tae-woong’s emotion, but Man-ok’s.
Yet it was also Tae-woong’s.
Now there was no way to distinguish.
“What on earth is this…”
And thus he was gradually stained by it.
There was no pride in watching a child grow.
Within that hateful poverty, what she felt was relief and regret.
And guilt.
The feeling that she could have done better squeezed at her heart.
And in that moment, all the words his past self had uttered came pouring out.
‘Other kids eat pizza all the time. Why can’t you give me that, Mom?’
She had worked until her fingers were raw.
‘Ah, don’t come to school. You smell.’
That was what came back despite her efforts, despite having nowhere to rest her weary body.
‘Study? It’s not that I won’t—I can’t! Did you ever send me to cram school, Mom? Everyone else’s parents do!’
She had scraped together every last penny and enrolled him in cram school, only for him to squander it all in secret.
‘I can’t find a job because you raised me wrong, Mom. Why is that my fault?!’
Watching her son lounge about inside the house, she gripped her bent fingers and aching back once more and headed out to work.
‘I gave birth to him like an idiot, so this is the mess I’m stuck in. Who does he take after?’
She knew it herself.
It was all an excuse.
It was a lie to hide my own laziness and avoidance, and to escape responsibility for it.
I wasn’t unaware of that.
Even knowing, I kept it buried in my heart.
The more I did so, the more I worked in silence.
But my son only drifted further and further away.
“Huh… huh-huh-huh…”
Memories and emotions never ceased, continuously driving Tae-woong forward.
It was around the time when I could no longer recall the sound of his voice.
In other words, it was when more than twenty years had passed.
That was when the registered mail arrived.
* * *
“Aaaah… aaaaaahhhhh!”
Facing the mother standing before me was utterly terrifying.
It was from that moment that I became deeply ashamed of myself.
Tae-woong—my son—had in an instant become my mother completely.
Was it said that it’s impossible to fully understand another person?
No, that’s not it.
For reasons I couldn’t explain, I had just experienced that miracle.
Even now I despised myself so much, yet loved her, and felt a suffocating ache as tears flowed endlessly from my eyes.
“Uuh… uuh-uuh-uuh!”
My heart was so torn apart that proper words wouldn’t come out.
All that escaped was the sound of a beast’s wailing.
It was as agonizing as grasping a boiling earthenware pot with bare hands…
But I couldn’t let go.
If I released this, it felt like she would truly slip away.
“Oh my! Tae-woong! What’s wrong!”
“It’s… I’m fine…”
Slap!
Tae-woong ultimately rejected the hand of help extended toward him.
He brushed away the Young Owner’s hand and his mother Man-ok’s hand as well.
He couldn’t accept it.
He had no shame left to accept it.
If he were to be human, he couldn’t do this.
He kicked open the door and ran out.
He pushed through the glass door and ran down the alley, bursting out onto the main street.
“Why is he like that?”
“Is something wrong?”
“Should we call someone?”
The murmuring voices of passersby.
Each one felt like it was squeezing my heart.
They are people living in a world entirely different from mine.
No—they are truly ‘people’ in a way that I am not.
The weight of that realization, so sorrowful and shameful, sent Tae-woong bolting forward once more.
Running, and running still.
Until he reached a place where no one could see him.
Completely oblivious to the fact that he’d driven his own car to get here.
And then, finally….
“Watch out! Be careful!”
“Wha—what?!”
CRASH!!!
A blinding light blazing from the side.
The blare of a horn.
The acrid smell of burning rubber.
All of it meant one thing.
BANG!!!!
As his body was hurled high into the air, Tae-woong found himself thinking.
Could it ever be possible to set all of this right again?
Why hadn’t he realized it sooner?
Even as consciousness slipped away, the bitter, herbal taste of the mugwort sponge cake he’d eaten lingered on his tongue.
‘So the last thing I feel is bitterness….’
That was Tae-woong’s final thought before darkness claimed him.
* * *
“He didn’t die. My son.”
After eating the mugwort sponge cake and rushing outside, Tae-woong was struck by a car.
It was a severe collision with a truck, but mercifully, he sustained injuries requiring only eight weeks of recovery.
Though his ribs and limbs bore numerous fractures, he’d escaped fatal wounds.
Of course, he would spend the rest of his life limping on one leg, his other arm trembling uncontrollably.
The sins one commits cannot be absolved by death, nor can mercy for continuing to live be sought.
“That creature apologized to me for the first time.”
“….”
“And he wept, saying it was far too late. It broke my heart.”
Grandmother Man-ok, having just returned from visiting her son in the hospital, sat before me and poured out her words.
It wasn’t that she wanted to tell someone.
She simply needed to expel it.
“It’s too late. Terribly, impossibly late. And yet I was grateful for even that. Grateful that the wretched bastard had finally come to his senses. This old woman was so grateful.”
For a time, she continued speaking of her son.
A mother and son who, through forgiveness, had finally become a true family.
Tae-woong resolved to leave his past behind and learn to work with integrity.
It would be difficult to shed all the karma he’d accumulated, but what of it?
I heard he was planning to work as a security guard at some apartment complex.
As I sat there listening quietly, Grandmother Man-ok suddenly grasped my hand and spoke.
“Thank you. Young man.”
“What did I do?”
“Even an old woman like me has intuition. I don’t know how things work or what happened, but I know that if you hadn’t done something, things wouldn’t have turned out this way.”
“….”
“I’ll let you have it cheap, so take it.”
“Pardon?”
“I mentioned it before, didn’t I?”
The mother, her eyes brimming with gratitude for having saved her child, spoke.
“Buy this building and take it.”
There was no hesitation in those words.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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